A cause for concern during Monday night’s city council meeting was the city’s fiscal year 2010 budget.

Even though the city figures appear to be in line with the numbers of the past fiscal year, DeKalb’s outlook is already looking bleak.

“We are tracking the same, but we are already down for the first quarter,” Assistant City Manager Rudy Espiritu said.

Part of the reasoning is that, even with projected revenues and expenditures, there is no way to control revenue generated by property taxes or sales taxes.

Espirutu said that last year the city fell short of $1 million in revenue.

Even with the current financial situations and future projects already on the books with funds uncertain, Espiritu is not panicking, saying he will remain very optimistic.

However Espiritu gave plenty reasons for others to get a little worried.

“We could end up $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 short in revenue,” Espiritu said.

This was a cause of major concern for council members.

“I don’t want to sound like the sky is falling, but it is alarming to thing we could be $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 short in revenue,” Mayor Kris Povlsen said.

Other council members want fast action to stop the downward slide of revenue income.

“I guess I’m in shock,” Sixth Ward Alderman David Baker said. “We need to do whatever we need to now to cut costs.”

The topic of possibly opening lines of credit to help dig the city out of a financial hole was discussed, but the idea did not resonate well with some council members.

“I don’t think we can borrow our way out of this,” Baker said.

In the past the council has promised not to raise taxes as a means of generating income to the pleasure of many citizens.

The thought of raising taxes, though, may be considered down the road if the economy does not pick up.

“I think it’s short-sighted to tell the people we’re not going to raise taxes,” said First Ward Alderman Bertrand Simpson.

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